


odd man rush

by understandablymediocre



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28461882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/understandablymediocre/pseuds/understandablymediocre
Summary: hockey takes and takes and takes and harry was always willing to give until there was nothing left offercollege au: louis plays hockey and harry would give anything to do so again
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Kudos: 7





	odd man rush

**Author's Note:**

> um i dont know what this is other than a love letter to max for all the theorem talk and yelling about larry and the terrible world of sports. i love you.

The world can be divided into two groups of people. People who are identified by what they aren’t and people who are identified by what they are. 

The first are average in most ways.

The second group, for better or worse, are what they are. It’s how they are known and it’s how they know themselves. Harry Styles always found himself to be in this group, he was a hockey player through and through. Since the time he was 4 he was a skater. It was his fact about himself during awkward class introductions. It was what he talked about during show and tell when he’d bring his stick or skates. It was the bio of all his social media accounts and his short lived stint on dating apps. It was who he was. 

Until a hit caught him at an unlucky angle.

Until he couldn’t get up like he had hundreds of times before.

Until the only way he was getting off the ice was on a stretcher. 

Until a doctor with a warm voice poured ice water in his veins when he gave him the news. 

He was a hockey player until he wasn’t. 

And then he was nothing. 

***

They said he may never walk again but he did. A full year of painstaking physical therapy and months of him using a wheelchair, then crutches, and then a cane and he was walking again. They also said he’d never play again and definitely not the way he used to. 

That obstacle he has yet to overcome.

The freedom, the feeling of flying, that came with being on the ice was taken from him at a moments notice and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever get it back. He knew for certain he wouldn’t get back his 1st round draft pick status and he kissed his NCAA eligibility down the drain the moment he stepped on the ice for an OHL team. Best case scenario for him would be Tuesday night beer league with other burnouts and guys that never made it past their travel hockey teams. 

So instead he found himself in Boston for school after a gap year. Far enough away from his old teammates, friends, and family that he only would have to endure their pitying looks and well meaning gestures at holidays but close enough that no one could accuse him of running from his problems. 

Running from your problems doesn’t look like this. It doesn’t look like weekly physical therapy appointments and seeing a psychiatrist regularly. Or like taking your ACTs 3 times to get a 35. Or a well organized planner and a full course load to get a degree that you, quite honestly, never intended on getting and spending the year you were relearning to walk taking community college classes. It doesn’t look like trying your damnedest to make friends and joining new clubs the moment you arrived so you wouldn’t hole up in your room for the next 3 years. So Harry couldn’t possibly be running from his problems. 

Except that’s exactly what he’s doing. 

***

Harry finds himself a few weeks after the start of spring semester in a little coffee shop near campus which had quickly become his favorite. Nearly all the tables are full and it's noisy but in a way that is more comforting than distracting and stifling. 

He’s pretty sure the barista that usually works the afternoons has a crush on him and he feels a bit bad because she’s good company when it’s slow, charges his phone behind the counter when he forgets his charger, and gives him a larger drink than he’s ordered. He is, unfortunately for her, devastatingly gay but they chat amicably for a few minutes as she complains about her job and he complains about a professor that she had taken a class with the previous year. A group of four guys enters the shop so he leaves Eve to take care of them and heads over to a small table in the corner where he takes out his laptop, his headphones, and a few textbooks and starts flipping through to pick up where he left off on an assignment that’s due in a few days.

He has only been working a few minutes when he hears a soft, “Hey,” Harry looks up to see a short man with shaggy brown hair who was with the group that stopped in but his friends are nowhere to be seen. Now that he has Harry’s attention he continues, “Sorry to bother you but all the tables are full can I study here?”

The table is small and Harry doesn’t really feel like moving his things around but it'd be a jerk move to say no so despite his nastier inclinations he says ok and moves his books to make room. He studies the man a bit closer as he settles in across from him. He has a smattering of hair that could be considered to be the start of a beard but Harry has doubts that the guy would be able to grow a full beard. He’s attractive nonetheless.

He looks up to find Harry looking at him and Harry is struck a bit breathless by the gorgeous blue eyes he is met with and Harry with nothing to say when you are caught staring, looks down at his work. 

Trying to forget the distraction, Harry gets back to his problem set while the man across from him gets to work on whatever he came here for. They sit in silence for two hours, maybe three, getting lost in their respective projects until the scratch of the chair across from him sliding along the tile floor causes Harry to look up.

The man stands up and stretches, bringing his hands above his head causing a sliver of his stomach to at just about eye level and Harry does his best to not ogle the stranger. All too soon his stretch ends and the stranger picks up his jacket to pull out his wallet and leaves the jacket on the table while he makes his way to the counter to buy another drink. If asked, Harry would deny watching him walk away. Refusing to be even creepier than he’s already been he looks back to the table and that’s when he sees it. 

Embroidered on the jacket left on the stranger’s side of the table in bold letters he sees the Boston University logo with HOCKEY nestled neatly underneath. That alone is not necessarily damning evidence but it’s a Bauer warm up jacket, the type that only players would have access to and Harry would know. He basically lived in that jacket for years until his accident. He considers packing up his things because he as much as he loves to pretend he is totally fine with everything that has happened to him to his mom and Gemma he doesn’t think he’s strong enough to sit across from someone who has everything he wants and doesn’t even realize it and he’s not too keen on finding out. 

He has spent the past year distancing himself from the game as much as he could, including players who don’t realize how fucking lucky they are, without it looking like he was withdrawing too much and it’s the only thing that kept him sane. 

It’s his own fault really. He should have gone to Arizona or somewhere far away from hockey. Wait, the Coyotes are actually doing really great there in growing the game. Antarctica is out of the question because he’d be too tempted to try and skate on a glacier. Anywhere but Boston and a hockey school in Boston at that. Australia maybe? Yes that’s it, he should have moved to Australia maybe he still c- 

His spiraling thoughts are cut off by the stranger's return to their table who is now holding two cups and thrusts one out towards Harry with a sweet smile as he says, “Uh I thought it would be rude to just get myself a drink so the barista told me what you usually get.”

Harry takes it from him a bit shocked at how this little act of kindness could spark such an odd feeling in the pits of his stomach and offers a soft thank you but doesn’t meet the blue eyes he saw before. 

“I’m Louis by the way.” The stranger, Louis, continues on refusing to let the conversation die.

“I’m Harry… Thank you for this but I am actually finishing up here,” He starts packing his things up and hopes he looks anyway but how he feels, a mixture of desperation to get out of this situation and a desire to know more about this boy with pretty eyes who goes out of his way to get random guys coffee to avoid being rude.  
Harry reaches into his pocket to pull a few bucks out and tries to hand it to Louis who looks almost offended that he’s trying to pay him back for his drink. 

Now that Harry has actually met his eyes again and Louis can get a good look at him, recognition flashes in his eyes. Harry is by no means famous but in hockey circles, he was well known. In the OHL by 16, top 10 in scoring, top 5 in assists in the league during his draft year means he made a bit of a splash. TSN has him projected to go somewhere between 8 and 15 in the first round of the draft. Of course, that never came to fruition which caused his name to get tossed around even more. Louis confirms his suspicions that he’s clocked him as a former prodigal son when he starts saying, “Wait you look familiar, are you-”

Harry cuts him off before he can finish with a, “No we’ve never met before I just have one of those faces you know,” and stands up to leave, “Thank you though for the coffee though that was really nice.” He feels like a bit of an asshole for dismissing Louis but he’s got to get out of there before he’s forced to deal with a conversation about exactly where Louis recognizes him from. 

A small oh is all Harry receives from Louis before making his way for the exit. He thinks he may hear a “See you around.” from behind him but he doesn’t stop to check. 

It’s gotten later than he thought it was, so caught up in finishing his work that he lost track of the time. The sun is starting to set as he walks towards his apartment casting the street in the soft orange light of golden hour and the breeze ruffles his curls. He wishes he were the type to be able to fully appreciate things like this scene in front of him because the way the light bounces off the buildings could be considered quite beautiful. 

Instead, he keeps his head down and finishes the walk to his off-campus apartment that isn’t too far a walk from the coffee shop.

He’s nearly home by the time he realizes he hasn’t even tried his coffee so he takes a sip and it’s perfect because of course it is. He looks at the side and Eve’s neat handwriting confirms that it’s his favorite hazelnut coffee that he only gets occasionally so it still feels like a treat. That however is not the only thing written on the cup, just to the left of his order there is a phone number written on the side accompanied by Louis (:

Harry throws the cup in the next available trashcan on the sidewalk.

**Author's Note:**

> if you've made it this far thank you, hopefully the next chapter will be longer and better written. this is my first fic and no one proof read it so please excuse any mistakes.


End file.
